


Battle Royal

by RoAnshi



Category: Dragon Quest VIII
Genre: Aftermath, F/M, Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-13
Updated: 2012-10-13
Packaged: 2017-11-16 06:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoAnshi/pseuds/RoAnshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica is not the only one who has a hard time dealing with her possession by Rhapthorne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battle Royal

**Author's Note:**

> Written circa 2006.
> 
> Note that the Hero is referred to throughout as "Eight", for universality.
> 
> The specifics are from my own gameplay of Arcadia's boss battle, and are referred to throughout.

_They were fighting a losing battle, even were they ultimately to win._

_Eight was down – had been down since almost the beginning of the battle, either resisting Angelo’s best attempts to return him to life, or collapsing again immediately afterward under the relentless pummeling from their adversary. Yangus was striking her – it – again and again, scarcely pausing between blows save when the undreamt-of magic she now possessed stopped him in his tracks. She'd taken Yangus down once as well, and Angelo, faltering on his own feet, had barely managed to raise him, then somehow, miraculously, in those spare seconds between her merciless attacks, keep himself standing._

_The immutable, agonizing fact remained: unless they destroyed Jessica, she would destroy them._

_One of the Shadows called to fight at her side darted forward, a gout of fast black smoke, to strike and sap him even further. He kept his feet, praying that Yangus was able to do the same under a similar attack. As fast as they struck and destroyed the Shadows, more came, and he wondered with a vague and distanced part of his staggering mind if it was her power, or the promise of feasting on gore, that drew them to the battle._

_His magic was fading, his pool of power draining. Too soon he’d have nothing left with which to fight, with which to heal, unless…. His hand barely faltered as he pulled an arrow and nocked it to his bow, taking careful aim at whatever Jessica had become. One strike might pull enough magic off her to allow them to survive another assault—_

_But he did not expect her to fall as his arrow struck home and sent her to her knees, helpless._

_He scarcely remembered the next few moments, of spellcasting by rote with his renewed strength. But Eight was on his feet again, pale and breathless and reaching for his Swallowtail boomerang, which meant that Angelo must have cast a life-giving spell; and the Shadows were dispersing under his strikes, which meant he had pulled even more magic for defense…._

_And then, at last, the final Shadow faded in defeat._

_And Dominico cast his barrier._

_And Jessica – no, what wore her face and her body and spoke with half her voice, not Jess, their (no, his) Jess – rose into the air… and then the possession fled her, her face paled and eyes closed, and she plummeted from the sky—_

With a suffocated gasp, Angelo jerked yet again out of his half-doze, the closest allowance to sleep his restless mind had granted him over the past several hours he’d tossed and turned on the inn’s narrow bed. He threw back the coverlets, finally surrendering to his sleeplessness, and sat up, rubbing cold hands over his face. Inwardly he cursed at how every time he ceded to exhaustion, every time his eyes slid shut, his mind insisted on battling Jessica yet again, scrolling for him the endless scenes filled with attacks and blood and pain and that horrible, final fall in which he could still hear the crunch of shattering, too-very-human bones as she’d dropped to the courtyard.

In perhaps the same way one would shoot a wounded animal made vicious by its pain, Dominico had offered them the chance to destroy her; Angelo was scarcely aware that he’d plucked another arrow, was holding it close to the bowstring, until Eight had given him that odd, hard look Angelo had come to know as a tacit warning. Only then had he realized he was arming himself against anyone who, compatriot or stranger, would dare to raise their own weapon against her. Trode’s protests, Eight’s soft, succinct explanation, had finally given them the right to go to where she had crumpled.

With the last vestiges of his magic, he himself had healed her, standing close-but-not-too-close in a pretense of distant detachment, afraid not so much of her but of himself, how he might react were he to touch her, be near enough to feel the chill to her skin, know the hesitation to her shallow breath. Even so, he wished that he had been the one to scoop her up in his arms, to carry her to that bed at the inn where she’d lain dreaming for hours, but Yangus, bullying his way forward, had claimed that grim mark of honor.

Even from where he waited across the room, as they had all kept vigil until she’d at last awakened, he could feel the fervor of her dreams.

Perhaps it was those very visions that could explain how she’d awakened so well, had spoken to them with energy and clarity, had insisted that they must, that very moment, try to save David… but with their failure to protect yet another heir to the sages, that energy had faded, had sent her into speechless silence. With all of them exhausted, demoralized, it had not taken more than a brief discussion to agree that it was in no one’s best interest to this night pursue the evil beast now borne in a dog’s body, and they’d returned to the inn for badly-needed sleep.

They’d arranged for a second room then, so that Jessica might have time by herself, to rest and recover; but after a subdued meal which had left more food on their plates than in their bellies, and had seen her sad and silent and staring, a murmured conversation which had excluded her had decided she should not be left alone after all. Eight of course had taken it upon himself to immediately volunteer his guardianship, and with nothing more than a nod and a quiet smile, she’d accepted his offer, gratitude in eyes that, Angelo thought, were still bleaker than any he’d ever seen. And he shelved his jealousy at Eight’s… _privilege_ to serve her, knowing that he himself had never earned such consideration, nor actually ever proven himself worthy of the vow he’d made to her, so many months before, at the Abbey.

He swung his legs off the bed and, as he stood to stretch against those odd small pains still rippling through his muscles, wryly reminded himself that Eight was demonstrating exceptional good nature in being Jessica’s caretaker this night, considering how many times he’d fallen under her assault. Had she struck him down, he thought, he wasn’t sure he’d have forgiven her quite so readily, quite so thoroughly, quite this soon.

_Of course I would have, in that barest moment between one breath to the next._

He wondered if she knew that it was _he_ who had dealt the final blow against _her_.

No matter, he assured himself, for in the next room, now freed of her possession, she was resting safely, her body so well-mended by his efforts that she bore not one bruise, not one scratch. He’d made sure of that, to the point that he’d neglected some of his own minor wounds—those beneath his clothing, that wouldn’t show, that wouldn’t make the others in their party raise an eyebrow and wonder why he still bore battle-marks hours later—to grant his full energy to her. And she’d proven her resilience before; no doubt by daybreak her spirit would once again match her physical health.

Even so, knowing all this, his racing mind refused to grant him rest.

The room’s floorboards creaked under his feet as he aimlessly began to pace. From the next bed came a deep groan and the rustle of bedclothes shifting. “Yer keepin’ me awake, y’ know,” Yangus grumbled into his pillow.

“At least that’s keeping you from snoring.” He leaned against the far wall—not all that far, actually, perhaps six feet from the foot of his bed—and wished for cold window glass to rest his forehead against, and a vista more attractive than this small, spare room lit by a flickering oil lamp. After all, what was the use of a city full of beautiful things, if he couldn’t easily look out and appreciate them when needing distraction with a sleepless night?

“Wot time is it?” Yangus folded his pillow, punched it for good measure, then stuffed his head between the folds.

“Don’t know. Late.” He pushed his hair back out of his eyes, considering. “Or maybe early. Quiet.” He turned and took a few more aimless steps, to the wall beside his bed, between their two rooms.

No, not _completely_ quiet. He paused, listening to the soft, subtle murmur of voices on the other side of the wall, and his mouth turned down. _She must not be able to sleep either. Not surprising._ As none of them were quite yet sure about the state of her mind, their implicit agreement was that until she wished to speak of it, none of them would press her for details. Yet now it was Eight’s ears, not his, receiving any intimate confessions she’d decided it was time to share.

He sat back down, hard, on his bed, scowling as he propped his chin on his hand, and bent toward the wall to listen more closely.

Yangus made a grunt as he rolled over – at least Angelo hoped it was a grunt – and fixed him with a heavy-lidded stare. “Know wha'cher problem is, Angelo?”

He returned the stare—well, returned it with more of a glare, actually—wishing that Yangus would catch the look in his eyes, shut up, and leave things be, as well as leaving him to his attempt to eavesdrop. “No,” he at last sighed, when Yangus continued to wait with an exceptional amount of patience, “but I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.”

Yangus sat up then, yawned, and scratched his big hand through the fur across his broad chest. Angelo waited for him to pick his nose as well but somehow he bypassed that step to his usual waking-up ritual. At last, after a long moment of thought that set his brow to furrowing, he explained, “Ya think too much bu'cha don’ do enough. An’ ya talk too much, but about all the wrong things.”

Angelo’s petty scowl went to a full-blown, offended frown. “I beg your pardon?”

The effort to select the right words showed on Yangus’s face. He shook his head and blew out a gusty sigh that smelled like pickles and sausages, and finally managed in a voice that was surprisingly soft. “T’ain’cher fault, y’ know.”

His answer was easy and immediate and much too much a lie. ”Never thought it was.” He kept his voice low, trying to pick up words from the other side of the wall, make sense of the muffled conversation. Had he heard a laugh? _No, just my imagination._

Yangus went on. “It coulda been any of us wot took her down. Just happened that it was you. So ya shouldn’t eat yerself up about it. ‘Specially cuz wot we wuz fightin’ wasn’t ‘er.”

“I didn’t see you looking too pleased about it.” Indeed, he remembered the dismay painted on Yangus’ face – no doubt an expression they’d all mirrored – as not-Jessica had approached, scepter in hand, and the gravity of the fight to come had struck them all at once.

“An’ I right wasn’t. But I did wot I hadda. An’ we didn’t know if she’d be dead or back to ‘erself at th’end of it neither. Weren’t easy to know you could fight a monster but end up losin’ a friend. _Killin’_ a friend.”

Angelo didn’t—couldn’t—answer.

Yangus went on. “Ya think I liked havin’ t’ hit ‘er and hit ‘er and hit ‘er again? You had it easy, bloke, not having to hit ‘er but once or twice.”

“ _Easy_?” He was back on his feet before he knew it, hands curling into fists, suddenly aware of just how tired he was in both body and spirit but unable to stop the spill of irrational anger. “I could barely keep us alive, couldn’t keep poor Eight alive for more than a minute, because of how she—”

“It,” Yangus interjected, surprisingly mild.

“—kept hitting us, and then down he’d go, face-first again and I didn’t have the time or the magic to spare for another try.” An abrupt step forward, and he bent to bring himself nearly nose-to-nose with Yangus. “And you, my friend, came far too close, and I was weakening and almost empty, and I needed to steal a bit of magic to buy some time, and that’s when….” His voice faltered and he straightened, turning away, his final words a mutter. “So don’t you dare tell me this was ‘easy’ simply because I wasn’t the one swinging the axe.”

Silence. Even the voices from the other side of the wall had stopped; no doubt, Eight and Jessica were finally behaving like the sensible people he and Yangus were not, and had retired. He wondered if they’d been able to discern what he and Yangus spoke, far more than he had been able to intuit those hushed words.

Finally Yangus broke the awkward stillness. “It’s just… Ya _gotta_ do sumfin’ bout you an’ her. I’d ‘ate t’ seeya wind up like the guv an’ the ‘orse princess.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” More pacing, more wishes for a window. Then again, there was the door, and he was tempted to escape through that, but he doubted if many others would appreciate his nightshirt and bare feet if he left in his current state

Yangus snorted. “Come on, 'ow many times we done seen ‘em at the spring? The look on they's faces when they got that minute – not even a minute – t’ try to say all them things? And then she’s gone again. An’ even if – when – we beat that flyin’ dog—”

“Rhapthorne, it seems,” Angelo corrected tiredly. He sank onto the room’s one chair, the one over which he’d so carefully hung his jacket and folded his trousers, and sagged, head in his hands.

”Right,” Yangus accepted absently. “An’ when she an’ Grandad are all back to bein’ them ol’ selves, that Charmless bloke ‘as ‘is claim on her, an’ Eight will just go back t’ bein’ a palace guard for the good ol’ King wit’ nuttin’ more than a ‘thankya very much’ for all ‘e’s done. Breaks me ‘eart sometimes, it does.”

Yangus fell silent for a long time; when he finally spoke again, his voice far too gruff, Angelo blinked hard and yanked himself back to full alertness. “And then, wot wd me n’ Red. Sometime, we _don’t_ ‘ate each other, but most the times… we do. Guess I’d just like to see _someone_ right 'appy for once.” He suddenly threw back the covers and stood, feet hitting the floor with a heavy thud. “I ain’t sleepin’ a bit more tonight. Don’t think ya are neither.”

Angelo yawned. “Debatable, I’d say.”

“Let’s find us a place wot has some cold ale and get out of ‘ere for a bit. Wind down.”

“What makes you think the pub will be open this late? As a matter of fact, that _anything_ other than the town jail will be open this late?” He looked up and made a vague sound of disgust as Yangus, bending to drag his trousers and vest and boots from beneath the bed, favored him with a massive and unattractive rear view. “By the Goddess, how many times do I have to beg you to please wear something— _anything_ —when we’re sharing a room?”

Yangus just grinned and ignored the plaint. “I’ll find us somefin’ to do. So ya plannin’ on goin’ like that, in yer granny’s nightie, or puttin’ on pants like a man?”

 

***

“If you were this fast in battle, why, our foes would never stand a chance.”

Angelo had dressed too quickly, had barely been spared the time to tug on his trousers, slip his feet into his shoes, and pull on a fresh shirt before he’d been forced out the door. In fact, as he padded down the short hallway to the stairs, trying to catch up with Yangus who’d bulled on ahead, he was still fastening his buttons. And he hadn’t even bothered with his coat.

Then again, wherever they ended up, it was unlikely that they would need remotely presentable attire to enter, not with Yangus’s instincts. He had no doubts that Yangus could find someplace that was open, or somesuch distraction, at what a small clock in the hallway had informed him was a painfully early hour of the morning. It just annoyed him that first of all, Yangus _could_ find a place with ease, and second of all, that he frequently found better places than Angelo did.

He matched his pace at the stairs. Yangus was still rambling, his voice drifting back as Angelo paused to slip an index finger into the heel of his shoe to try to adjust the bent leather chafing his foot. “Way I see it, all them things wut’s a bother… ya gotta talk about ‘em wit’ the right person, sure as not an ol’ thief like me. An' say the right things, not the easy things.”

He was behind again, trailing Yangus across the common room to the inn’s exit, and hurried to catch him. “If I ever decide what those are, and to whom I need to speak them, I’ll certainly take your advice.”

Yangus punched at the door with a beefy fist, startling the drowsy nightclerk, and it swung open, spilling them into the cool dark night. The outside air was fresh and moist, heavy with the scent of seabreeze and night-blossoms, and Angelo paused a moment, tilting his face up to let the soft air leach the fever from his overheated mind. He’d almost thought he could still hear voices, calm and quiet as those from the next room, one as sweet as that he heard more often in his dreams than he’d like to concede.

“Cor….” Yangus breathed, himself staring at the stars wreathed in gauzy ribbons of mist. “Beautiful night, ain’t it? An’ you wouldn’t think it for all wot went bad today, wouldja?” His sentimental mood vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and he made a brusque gesture for Angelo to follow him as he started forward toward the street. “C’mon. I think I c’n smell us some beer—Oi!”

Yangus drew up short as he rounded the corner, his eyes widening with genuine surprise. “Fancy meetin’ th’ two-a yer out here.”

Jessica’s answering voice--“So you couldn’t sleep either?”—and Angelo closed his eyes again to listen, just for a moment, before stepping forward himself.

“It appears none of us could,” he conceded, his eyes meeting hers.

They—she and Eight—were sharing a granite bench beneath the silver moonlight, and for the barest moment, his heart flared with jealous fire at yet another concession never granted him, at how Eight’s hand rested gently on her forearm in what logic told him was nothing more than camaraderie, but…

“We just thought we’d step out for a moment, get some fresh air. And,” she turned to her companion, “I still have a bit of apologizing to do.”

“It’s really my own fault.” Eight’s voice was now so quiet, so abashed, it could scarcely be heard over the omnipresent lapping of the waves against the shores far below. “If I’d remembered to carry the new shield we’d bought….”

“But I did hit a bit hard. Especially you.” Strange how she was answering Eight, but those dark eyes hadn’t yet left Angelo’s; and he supposed his gaze had been similarly fixed on her.

Yangus cleared his throat. “We wuz lookin’ for somefin’ to cool our throats with. Know anyplace as we c’n get some beer, some ale, this late?”

Eight, rising, darted his eyes over to Yangus and nodded. “You know, I think King Trode might keep some in the wagon. I’d be happy to go with you to see.”

“An’ ain't _that_ a grand idea, guv! Let’s go.” Yangus’s broad wink back over his shoulder at Angelo was more than a bit wicked, as he and Eight started down the deserted street. “We’ll bring ya some back in a bit, eh? But don’t let us keep you waitin’.” They rounded another corner, and were gone.

For a moment, Angelo thought of hastily excusing himself as well, of performing an abrupt about-face with scarcely a word of dismissal and returning to the safe, spare haven of the inn and the solitude of his bed... but her silence snared him as thoroughly, as surely, as had that whispered voice from the next room.

He waited.

And then suddenly she was speaking, snapping that miserable silence between them. “That’s a terrible bruise,” she said bluntly, pointing at his chest. “Why?”

Angelo looked down, saw that a dark mark was visible even by moonlight on a swatch of skin not covered by his imperfectly-buttoned shirt; and, suddenly self-conscious, he pulled the lapels closer to his throat. “It will go away on its own. I had… more pressing matters to take care of.”

"Oh." She nodded, then swallowed. “Come sit down.”

He started forward. One of the tooled urns flanking the bench bloomed with sprays of jasmine, tumbling over its elaborately-sculpted marble rim, and he paused. His fingers closed around the nearest of the blossoms, so like a bouquet, and he plucked the stem of white flowers. He twirled it for a moment in his fingers before, without a word, holding it out to her. A moment's hesitation before she took it, breathed deeply of its perfume, and then, luminous as daybreak, at last smiled at him.

He took the place on beside her on the bench--the place that Eight had just vacated—and, one hand settling light on her shoulder, he took a deep breath, and managed, “Let’s talk.”

She reached up to close soft, warm fingers around his, nodded, and agreed, “Let’s.” 


End file.
